The Bear Tracks

Went for a walk today and found the tracks of a bear that wondered through our property. This is a very big Black Bear, the lens cover from my camera is 3" wide and the track is 2 1/2 times as wide.

We walked up the Mount Pope trail to the lower lookout, about 1.3k or 7/8 of a mile. It is a fairly hard uphill walk, but we were lucky that it was very warm for the last couple of day so most of the snow has melted.
There were a few Brown creepers, Golden-crowned Creepers, Black-capped Chickadees and Mountain Chickadees on the walk, along with a American Three-toed Woodpecker and several Common Ravens. The mountain has lots of dead Pine trees so the Woodpecker population is greater than a normal year.
We walked up to the top of the Mountain in October for the third time this year, a 13k return trip that takes us about 7 or 8 hours to do. We think with Sharons 2 hip replacements and my fake knee we are doing pretty good wit our walks.
The walk up is always a surprise, we never know what we will see, this little half grown Spruce Grouse was only 5 feet off the trail along with 2 others. We also spotted a Ruffed Grouse and a Dusky Grouse along the trail.